Muslim Movements and Schisms

C. A STUDY OF THE AHMADIYYA MOVEMENT.

1. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian.

During the latter part of the last century the Muslims of the
Punjab area in north-west India began to take notice of a
Muslim writer from the village of Qadian named Mirza Ghulam
Ahmad. This man wrote a number of treatises attacking Christianity
and Hinduism and in 1880 began an extensive work entitled
Barahin-i-Ahmadiyah which defended Islam from the onslaughts
of Christian missionaries and the Arya Samaj, a militant Hindu
organisation. At first this work, published in four volumes, was
favourably received by the Muslims and it appeared that a mujaddid,
a worthy defender of Islam, had risen. These sentiments, however,
soon gave way to almost universal opposition as the Mirza began to
make one extravagant claim after another for himself. He arrogated
to himself the title of "promised Messiah", that is, one raised
in the Spirit of Jesus whom the Muslims believed would return to
earth but whom the Mirza said was buried at Srinagar, a town in
the Punjab. He also claimed to be the Mahdi as well as a prophet
of Allah and even a re-incarnation of Krishna, one of the leading
Hindu idols!

With the declaration that he was masih maw'ud (the
Promised Messiah), mahdi of the Muslims and that he
appeared in the likeness of Jesus who had died in Kashmir
and was no longer in heaven, Ghulam Ahmad committed himself
to a renewal of Islam by a process which most Muslims
concidered heresy.
(Lavan, The Ahmadiyah Movement, p.38).

He said he was receiving divine revelations and by the end of his
life had proclaimed that no one was a true Muslim unless he
acknowledged him as the Mahdi whom Allah was to send into the world.
Signs of the man's remarkable opinion of himself appeared even in
the Barahin when his mission was still in its early stages.
Although the work showed no real familiarity with Christianity and
very little evidence of true research he nonetheless had convinced
himself that he was Islam's answer to the missionary problem as he
saw it.

The reader also frequently encounters in the Mirza's book
references to his Divinely inspired revelations, in miracles
and to Divine communication and prophecies, and last but not
the least, his boastfulness. All this leaves an unpleasant
taste in the mouth and transforms the book, which claims to
embody a sober academic discussion and a dignified religious
debate, into a work of personal bragging - a work in which,
again and again, the author stoops to self-advertisement and
self-glorification.
(Nadwi, Qadianism: A Critical Study, p.29).

Although he boldly claimed to be God's man for the hour there are
innumerable evidences to convict him of fraudulence both from a
Christian and a Muslim perspective. We shall quote a few of his
false prophecies shortly but it can be mentioned here that he
at one time stated that his four-volume Barahin would in time
be expanded into fifty volumes. Later, by a stroke of the devious
kind of reasoning one finds in so many of his writings, he reduced
this to five and claimed he would be fulfilling his promise as the
only difference between five and fifty (in Arabic and Urdu) is a
dot. Even then the fifth volume only appeared in 1905, no less than
twentyfive years later. He had called for pre-publication subscriptions
many years earlier for the volume and a number of people duly ordered
it. "During this period, a large number of people who had paid in
advance for all the five volumes but had received only four volumes
had passed away" (Nadwi, Qadianism: A Critical Study, p. 28).
Furthermore the last volume was a far cry from the earlier works.
Those had been basically Islamic in teaching but the last contained
a dogmatic presentation of Ghulam Ahmad's arrogant claims for himself
and much of its teaching contradicted his earlier works and, with
them, orthodox Islam. In the intervening years his initial polemics,
directed against Christians and Hindus, had given way to a wholesome
onslaught on much of Islam itself.

Henceforth, instead of debating with Christians and Arya
Samajis he turned towards Muslims and began to challenge
them to debate with him.
(Nadwi, Qadianism: A Critical Study, p. 35).

It was his claim to be a prophet, a veritable nabi, that
antagonised most of his Muslim opponents. On one occasion he wrote
"God had revealed to me that every one who has received my call and
has not accepted it is not a Muslim" (quoted in Nadwi, op.cit., p.57)
and in his work entitled Tatimmah Haqiqat ul-Wahi he made
similar grandiose claims for himself. His unashamed personal bragging
and boastfulness are revealed very clearly in this quote in the book
mentioned:

"No Prophet came into this world whose name was not given
to me. In Burahin-i-Ahmadiya God has affirmed me as
Adam, Noah, Ibrahim, Ishaque, Yaqub, Ismail, Moses, Dawud,
Isa, son of Mary, and Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah
be upon him). I am the incarnation of all these Prophets".
(Maududi, The Qadiani Problem, p. 119).

In another work quoted on the same page he said of his generation:
"In this Ummat, the distinction of being called a Prophet
was bestowed upon me alone and all others are undeserving of this
appellation". As all Muslims believe that Muhammad was the seal of
the prophets and that there will be no prophet after him, it is hardly
surprising that Ghulam Ahmad was bitterly opposed by orthodox Muslims.
His son and second "Khalifah", Mirza Bashir ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad,
sought to justify his father's claim in these words:

But it is equally valid to say that the expression 'the last
prophet' does not prohibit the coming of prophets who imitate
the life and example of the Holy Prophet, teach nothing new,
and only follow him and his teaching; who are charged with
the duty of spreading the Holy Prophet's teaching, who attribute
their spiritual acquisitions including prophethood to the
spiritual example and influence of their preceptor and master,
the Holy Prophet. (Ahmad, Invitation to Ahmadigyat, p.46).

In yet another publication issued in 1901 by the Mirza to defend his
position he said "... my contention is that there is nothing
objectionable in my being called nabi and rasul after
the Holy Prophet ..." (quoted in Lavan, The Ahmadiyah Movement, p.47).
It hardly matters whether there is, as his followers claim, a
distinction between his prophethood and that of Muhammad. No claimant
to any kind of prophethood after Muhammad is likely to be favourably
received by the Muslim world as a whole.

That Mirza Ghulam Ahmad walked a fine line on the question
of prophecy is clear. He claimed everything except that he
was another prophet in succession of Muhammad himself. ...
But, by prophesying against Muslims, and not only against
Hindus and Christians, and by using the term nabi to
describe himself, he did grave offence to Muslim sensibilities.
(Lavan, The Ahmadiyah Movement, p.58).

2. The Ahmadiyya Movement - Its Tenets and Branches.

Although the Mirza began as a polemicist within the Islamic fold his
extreme claims soon ensured that his followers were alienated from
the mainstream of Muslim life and it was inevitable that they should
form a separate group. They are known by the title they gave themselves
- Ahmadiyya - which they say refers to Muhammad's other name
and not to their founder. (Muslims generally refer to them as
"Qadianis" after the small, insignificant village where he was born).
Their own general antagonism towards traditional Islam finally led
to the point where leading Pakistani theologians sought to have them
denounced as non-Muslims. The late Maulana Abul a'la Maududi said of
them:

To these few examples has now been added the case of the
Qadiani group concerning whom all the Ulama of Islam
and the general body of the Muslims have arrived at a
consensus that they should be proclaimed Heretics and that
this finding of Heresy against them includes also their
expulsion from the pale of Islam. In the presence of the
Qadiani religion, we cannot live with them as one nation
and still be Muslims and Believers.
(Maududi, The Qadiani Problem, p.103).

In 1974 they were duly declared a non-Muslim minority by the Government
of Pakistan, the country where they have their headquarters to this day.
They have also been barred at times from performing the pilgrimage to
Mecca. Apart from Ghulam Ahmad's prophetic claims they have also been
denounced by Muslim writers for denying the Muslim concept of jihad
as meaning holy war, claiming this refers solely to striving in the
way of Allah (a commendable approach but one inconsistent with the
Qur'an which plainly teaches that jihad means fighting and warfare as
we have seen). There are many other issues on which they distance
themselves from historical Islam. Ghulam Ahmad was also reviled for
constantly praising British rule in India and for seeking the protection
of the colonial regime when opposition became heated.

Six years after the death of the Mirza in 1908 the Ahmadiyya Movement
began to split into two groups, known today as the Ahmadis and the
Lahoris. The former are based in Rabwah, Pakistan, while the latter,
as their name indicates, operate from Lahore. The chief cause of this
split was the determination of a group of leading Ahmadiyya intellectuals
to bring the movement back towards traditional Islam and make it more
acceptable to Muslims generally. The two prominent leaders of this
group were Khwaja Kamal ud-Din and Muhammad Ali. The former operated
in England for many years while the latter became a prominent author
and the translator of the first widely-accepted Muslim translation of
the Qur'an. The Lahoris have generally played down Ahmad's prophetic
claims, referring to him usually as the "promised Messiah" alone.

The split between the Qadiyani Ahmadis and those from Lahore
focussed primarily on personality conflicts and also on a
divergent interpretation of the role of the Promised Messiah
for Islam. ... The Lahore Ahmadiyas particularly were anxious
to demonstrate their unity with Sunni Islam and the forward
thrust of those seeking political identity for the Muslims.
(Lavan, The Ahmadiyah Movement, p.122).

The Lahoris have moved towards the rational approach to Islam first
adopted by Syed Ahmed Khan, a nineteenth-century Muslim modernist,
denying the miracles of the prophets and the like. The Ahmadis, however,
who have become active throughout the world, remain true to Ghulam
Ahmad's original stand. The split led to sharp recriminations between
the Mirza's son, Mahmud Ahmad, who maintained his father's claims to
prophethood, and Muhammad Ali, who led the Lahori branch away from
the extravagance of these claims towards mainstream Islam. It does
appear, however, that the Ahmadis remain the true representatives of
the self-styled prophet Ghulam Ahmad.

It is also beyond doubt that this group faithfully represents
the teachings of the Mirza, in so far as he had claimed
prophethood for himself in clear and vigorous terms. But the
standpoint of the Lahori branch, whose leader until a few
years ago was Maulvi Muhammad Ali (d. 1952), is enigmatic
to the core.
(Nadwi, Qadianism: A Critical Study, p.120).

The Lahore group operates today under the name of Ahmadiyya Anjuman
Isha'at-i-Islam and while it is not engaged in much propaganda it
does publish many works. One writer defines the points of agreement and
difference between this group and the Ahmadis as follows, saying of
the former:

The seceders admit that they regard other Mussalmans as
Moslems and not "Kafirs" (unbelievers), as do the followers
of Bashir Ahmad; and they repudiate the alleged superstition
of the latter, but, on the other hand, they continue true
to Ahmad's unique teaching regarding the death and burial
of Jesus in Kashmir, they regard Ahmad as the reformer sent
for this generation, and they hold that, in time, all
Mohammedans will accept those two facts and that so the
breach will be healed. They do not regard as important Ahmad's
decrees, that no Ahmadi shall follow an orthodox imam in prayer
or attend a non-Ahmadi's funeral service, and that no Ahmadi
shall give the hand of his daughter to a non-Ahmadi husband
although his son may marry non-Ahmadi girls. They regard these
prohibitions as having had only a temporary significance in
the early days of the movement, and hence no longer important.
(Walter, "The Ahmadiya Movement Today", The Muslim World,
Vol.6, p.69).

The great division between the Ahmadiyya Movement and historical
Islam is, ironically, based on diverse views about the person of
Jesus Christ. Ghulam Ahmad soon became convinced that traditional
Muslim beliefs about Jesus leaned far too far over towards
Christianity and sought to "correct" them. A brief study of his
attitudes and consequential anti-Christian prejudices will help
to show why this sect has been denounced by both Christians and
Muslims.

3. The Ahmadiyya Attitude Towards Jesus Christ.

Ghulam Ahmad taught two things about Jesus that were to become
fundamental to Ahmadiyya doctrine and which stand out from
traditional Muslim beliefs. On the one hand he taught that the
second coming of the Son of Mary was a spiritual descension and
that it had been fulfilled in him. On the other he taught that
Jesus had not ascended to heaven but had survived the cross in
a swoon and that he went away to Kashmir in India where he died
at the age of a hundred and twenty years and was buried in Srinagar.
(An ancient tomb of one "Yus Asaf" in the city conveniently became
the tomb of Jesus and is so regarded by the Ahmadiyya to this day!).

But the supreme claim of the Mirza of Qadian is that he
is the promised Messiah. As such he signed himself in
his numerous writings. What did he mean by this claim?
He did not mean that he was the very person of Jesus
Christ re-incarnated in India. On the contrary his
conception was that, just as according to the
interpretation of Jesus, John the Baptist was the Elijah
which was to come (Matthew xi.14), because he came "in the
spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke i.17), so he, the Mirza,
is the Messiah which is to come, because he is come in the
"spirit and power" of Christ.
(Griswold, "The Ahmadiya Movement", The Muslim World, Vol.2, p.374).

He even went so far as to claim that he was just like Jesus Christ
and that his character was in every way a model replica of the Son
of Mary's holy personality. As if this was not arrogant enough he
even went so far as to claim superiority to Jesus Christ!

He claimed that revelation identified him with Jesus,
one of his proofs being his likeness in character to
Jesus, but afterwards he claimed to be superior to him.
(Tritton, Islam, p.161).

This claim was repeated by his son who said that it was not beyond the
power of God "to raise one in our time similar to Jesus or greater than
him from among Muslims" (Ahmad, Invitation to Ahmadipyat, p.26).
Another Ahmadiyya writer bluntly declared "Forget then the memory of
Mary's Son; Ghulam Ahmad is better than he" (quoted in Maududi,
The Qadiani Problem, p.51).

One of the marvels of history has been the rise every now and
again of a man who has claimed to be Jesus Christ returned to
earth, particularly as these men have often been thoroughly evil,
speaking and acting in an entirely antithetical manner to the
true Jesus. Jim Jones, leader of the "People's Temple" who
recently led nearly a thousand gullible followers into a mass
suicide pact in Jonestown, Guyana, is a typical example.

The Mirza was another of these typical "false Christs". Whereas
Jesus said that he had not come to judge those who rejected him
but rather to save them (John 12.47), Ghulam Ahmad constantly
prophesied all manner of immediate evil against those who opposed
him until he was forbidden by the British rulers of India to do
so. His son unashamedly declared "Whatever lie was invented against
Hazrat Mirza Sahib claimed the inventor as its victim. Dreadful
signs were shown by God in his support" (Ahmad, Invitation to
Ahmadiyyat, p.207). We shall also see that whereas the
prophecies of Jesus were fulfilled to the letter, Ghulam Ahmad
had to resort to devious and contrived arguments to explain away
prophecies he made which were never fulfilled. Furthermore he was
a thoroughly arrogant man and one who showed none of the gentle
disposition of the founder of Christianity. He was, in fact,
almost the opposite of Jesus in character and temperament.

He also sought relentlessly to dishonour Jesus and strip Islam of
doctrines that seemed to draw it too close to Christianity. He denied
the sinlessness, physical ascension and return of Jesus, thereby
removing all the remaining traces of his glory in Islam and reducing
him to the level of common prophethood.

It is noteworthy that the polemic centres on the death and
resurrection of Christ, and on His sinlessness. The method
is to get behind the Gospel testimony with the help of
destructive criticism by Western scholars, and so to
eliminate the living message of the evangel.
(Stanton, "The Ahmadiya Movement", The Muslim World,
Vol.15, p.15).

He considered that the Islamic doctrine of the ascension and return
of Jesus went a long way towards supporting the Christian belief
that Jesus was the eternal Son of God seated at the right hand of
the Father and so sought relentlessly to prove that he had died
and had been buried in India. In one of his works he said to the
ulama "Let the God of Christians die. How long will you go on calling
him the living one, the undying. Is there any limit to it?" (quoted
in Nadwi, Qadianism: A Critical Study, p.47). In many other
sayings and writings one finds evidence that he was grimly determined
to refashion the image and life of Jesus until he appeared to be no
more than a rather weak and unsuccessful prophet of Israel. One
Ahmadiyya writer, following in the steps of his founder, once said
"Jesus excelled in nothing except deception and fraud. It is a pity
that the ignorant Christians believe such a person to be divine"
(quoted in Maududi, The Qadiani Problem, p.51). Above all the
Mirza sought to divide Islam as far as he could frnm Christianity.

To achieve this he was prepared to jettison certain Islamic
beliefs which, in his view, compromised the standing of
Islam in relation to Christianity, and thus to make some
sacrifice of orthodoxy in the interests of a more vigorous
anti-Christianity. ... In pursuit of his resolve that Islam
must be cleansed of a lingering excess of respect for Jesus,
he sought to eliminate those traditional beliefs, which had
come into Islam after its expansion, relating to Christ as
returning from Heaven to the world in order to subdue
anti-Christ and bring in a Muslim millenial state of bliss
and righteousness.
(Cragg, The Call of the Minaret, p.249, 250).

His prejudiced attitude towards Christianity is reflected in the
writings of his son who on one occasion had no qualms about
declaring that Dajjal (the Muslim concept of the anti-Christ)
and Christianity were "one and the same thing" and claimed that the
appearance of Christian evangelists in India was proof that the
ultimate moment of evil had arrived, saying "the appearance of the
Dadjjal is the appearance of Christian propagandists" (Ahmad,
Invitation to Ahmadiyyat, p.117). It is hardly surprising
that the Ahmadiyya Movement has antagonised Christians and given
them little sympathy for it. Traditional Islam appears mild and
friendly towards Christianity in comparison! Islam itself has
revolted against this movement in consequence of its abusive attitude
towards orthodox Muslims (Ghulam Ahmad constantly derided them as
"Jews" and regularly reviled Muslim leaders as "offsprings of harlots",
prophesying all manner of vengeance and destruction against them).

Bashir ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad, the Mirza's son, on many occasions
bigotedly claimed that whereas Islam, because of its nebulous beliefs
about Jesus, would constantly recede before Christianity, Ahmadiyyat
would on the contrary destroy it. In one book he wrote entitled
What is Ahmadiyyat?, in a statement reflecting both his wishful
extremism and corresponding arrogant bigotry, he said "Christian
missionaries and workers now hesitate to confront Ahmadiyyat. Jamaat
in Africa has put an end to Christian work in that continent" (!)
(quoted in Brush, "Ahmadiyyat in Pakistan", The Muslim World,
Vol.45, p. 167). In his other famous work, with tongue-in-cheek, he
cheerfully said of Christianity "The most powerful among the enemy
religions, which was full of pride over its universal success and
regarded Islam as its prey, has suffered such a blow that its votaries
take to their heels as soon as they hear of the approach of an Ahmadi
exponent. A Christian missionary cannot stand before an Ahmadi"
(Ahmad, Invitation to Ahmadiyyat, p.132). The Mirza himself
once prophesied that he would fulfil the Muslim belief that Jesus
would "break the cross" on his return and that Christianity was
destined to be destroyed during his lifetime - just one of those
many hollow prophecies he made that has hardly borne any evidence of
fulfilment. It will be useful to conclude this study of the Ahmadiyya
Movement by examining a few other prophecies he made and their
respective outcomes.

4. The Prophecies of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.

No prophet should be without the ability to prophesy future events
and Ghulam Ahmad, true to his assumed vocation, produced a wealth
of such prophecies. The mark of a true prophet, however, is the
fulfilment of his prophecies (Deuteronomy 18.22) and it is here
that the "promised Messiah" proved himself to be a pretender for
so many of his bold predictions failed to come to pass. We shall
consider just a small selection of the prophecies of the founder
of the Ahmadiyya Movement and the explanations given to explain
away their non-fulfilment.

The first concerns an elderly Muslim convert to Christianity, one
Abdullah Athim, who held a series of debates with the Mirza over
a period of twelve days. As these became increasingly acrimonious
Ghulam Ahmad prophesied that whichever of the two of them was
speaking lies would die within fifteen months and be cast into hell.
This was a very subtle prediction as the Christian leader was already
sixty-five years old, of poor health, and two hot summers were yet
to pass before this period expired. (There appears to be little
doubt that the period was shrewdly calculated and there was a
strong possibility that the prophecy would be naturally fulfilled).
Unfortunately for the Mirza, however, Athim proved to be in better
health than he had been for a long time when the prophesied period
expired. A few days thereafter a Muslim writer, whose letter is
quoted in the source here referred to, said:

Was this prophecy fulfilled according to Mirza Sahib's
description? No - never. Abdullah Authom is still safe and
sound and he has not been punished by death to be flung
into hell. I do not think it is possible to make a different
interpretation of this prophecy than what it clearly means
to be.
(Durrani, Fallacy of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, p.36).

The Mirza's son, however, laboured to prove that this prophecy had
indeed been fulfilled, even though Athim continued to live on for
a long time after he was expected to die. Bashir ud-Din gave these
explanations:

He suffered great mental anguish, a sort of hell. ... These
hallucinations constituted the mental hell into which Atham
had fallen. It was the result of remorse, of feelings of
guilt over his support of Christianity and hostility to Islam.
... Atham began to have doubts about Jesus' divinity. The
truth of Islam began to dawn upon his mind. On his retreat
God completed the second step of this part of the prophecy.
Atham was saved from death even though fear and guilt had
driven him very near it. He was saved because he had
retreated.
(Ahmad, Invitation to Ahmadiyyah, p.250).

The author gives no evidence in favour of the claim that the Christian
leader began to doubt the divinity of Jesus - a claim typical of many
made by the Mirza and his followers over the years which were patently
untrue and conjured up to suit the Ahmadiyya cause. In any event one
must surely be extremely gullible to entertain suggestions that the
hell was "a sort of hell" or a "mental hell" and that God had spared
the Christian leader because he allegedly no longer wrote critically
against Islam!

When Jesus said he would rise from the dead on the third day, it
happened just as he had said. When he predicted that Jerusalem would
be surrounded by armies and would be destroyed with its Temple, it
happened just as he said. His prophecies were fulfilled exactly as
he made them. Not so Ghulam Ahmad - when his bold claims proved to
be entirely presumptuous, both he and his followers had to resort
to peculiar lines of reasoning to prove they had been duly "fulfilled".

The second prophecy concerns a young Muslim woman named Muhammadi
Begum. The Mirza was infatuated with her and even though she was
refused to him by her father he predicted again and again that he
would marry her and claimed that God had wed her to him as Zaynab
had been wed to Muhammad (Surah 33.37). Not long afterwards she
was married to an orthodox Muslim named Sultan Muhammad. What
followed has an element of tragedy about it:

On the strength of prophecy Mirza Sahib wanted to marry
Muhammadi Begum and to achieve his object, he used threats.
In spite of that the girl was married to another person.
Yet he did not lose hope because of his prophecy. In
pursuance of this ambition, he disrupted his family,
divorced his wife in old age, disowned his young children
causing forfeiture of their rights of inheritance and
estranged all the members of the family and ultimately
instead of the death of Sultan Muhammad, the girl's husband
or Ahmad Baig, the girl's father, as prophecied by him, he
himself died in utter despair.
(Durrani, Fallacy of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, p.28).

The threats spoken of included yet another wild prophecy to the
effect that Sultan Muhammad would within two-and-a-half years duly
pass away. When he also outlived the measure of the days assigned
to him by Ghulam Ahmad the latter, with his usual casuistry, claimed
that God had "postponed" the demise of his foe. Instead the Mirza
died in 1908 while the "usurper" of his God-ordained bride outlived
him by many years. The Mirza, as quoted in the work here mentioned,
had prophesied almost fatefully against himself when he made this
significant prediction:

I say again and again that the prophecy about the son-in-law
of Ahmad Beg (that is, Sultan Muhammad), is assuredly
predestined. Wait for it. If I am a liar, this prophecy
would not be fulfilled and my death will come.
(Nadwi, Qadianism: A Critical Study, p.96).

He can be judged according to his own words and his own mouth condemns
him. The marriage that had been made in heaven failed to take place
on earth.

The third and last prophecy we shall consider relates to the Mirza's
claim to be the "promised Messiah" in the light of the Muslim
tradition which states that the Son of Mary will descend on a
minaret known as the Isaya Minarah in Damascus when he
returns to earth:

Then Jesus son of Mary will descend at the white minaret
to the east of Damascus.
(Sunan Abu Dawud, Vol.3, p.1202).

Naturally, as he claimed to be the fulfilment of all the prophecies
relating to the second coming of Jesus, he had to somehow contrive
a fulfilment of this one as well. In one work entitled Hashia
Azala-i-Awham he stated that God had revealed to him that
Damascus was only a synonym for his home town of Qadian and that
its name appeared in the tradition because the two towns were
supposedly very similar! He added that the tradition had always
puzzled scholars, a claim for which he adduces no evidence. On this
occasion, however, he departed from his usual practice of twisting
and contriving his way through his own and other prophecies and
personally had a minaret built in Qadian to complete the fulfilment
of the prophetic tradition! In 1903 he laid its foundations and
after his death the minaret was completed by his son Mahmud Ahmad.
After all, a good prophet should always do his best to see that his
prophecies are fulfilled!

Our brief study of the Mirza and his prophecies shows that he very
adequately fills the role of one of the false prophets and false
Christs that Jesus said would appear during the new covenant age
(Matthew 24.24), and it does not surprise us therefore to find that
he possessed a particularly vindictive attitude towards Christianity.
Although the Ahmadiyya Movement has made some progress over the
years, it is still a relatively minor sect and one which orthodox
Islam remains determined to exclude from the Muslim fold.